THE DEATH WATCH

I have not written in this Blog since February because I really had nothing much to write about and I had very little incentive to just sit and write nonsense. However, since February I have been fighting with a worsening condition related to my esophagus. I started to have trouble swallowing and I was told that it is a very common occurrence to have scar tissue build up in the location of radiation treated cancer.

In April I had a CAT scan and it was determined that I was Cancer free and that not getting the esophagus surgically removed was not a bad decision.

Since February it has been harder and harder to eat food but I was told that I had very few options short of actually cutting out the entire esophagus and attaching my stomach directly to my throat. I didn’t particularly like that option. Another option was to have a feeding tube re-inserted. I had the feeding tube that I had during Chemo removed when I got my taste buds back. As the condition worsened, however, I was reduced to drinking protein shakes and Ensure. I was losing weight, which was a good thing, but my general health seemed to stay good.

Just prior to going East for my 50th class reunion even the liquid diet was becoming more difficult. The crises hit about a week before we were headed home when I even had trouble swallowing my own saliva. I had been crushing all my pills for high blood pressure, diabetes etc. but that now also became impossible. Obviously I was also not getting enough water into my system so I was getting dehydrated. By the time we got home I was in bad shape and my physical condition was not helped by the delay leaving Boston and the entire airport waiting due to missed flights. By the time we got home I really felt like I needed to be hospitalized. The doctor we called suggested I go to the Emergency Room at the hospital where my Oncologist was located so that’s what we did. My only goal was to get a stomach tube put in and I was prepared for feeding through the tube from now on.

My hospital stay turned out to be a bit longer than I anticipated because my Oncologist wanted to get a complete picture of my condition so before I had the stomach tube inserted my dehydration was stabilized and I met with a GI doctor to see what could be done about the closing of my esophagus. The GI doctor suggested he could insert an endoscope and try to dilate the scar tissue, in ever increasing amounts, so that an opening could be created. In addition, he said that it looked like the constriction was too high up in the esophagus to allow a stent to be inserted. I left the hospital with a stomach tube and a clean bill of health with reference to my blood pressure and my diabetes. I have not taken any of the medication since.

Although I started the endoscope procedures with the GI doctor, I had an underlying belief that the cancer had returned. In the period between June and October I had almost weekly procedures, which only temporarily fixed the problem. After a procedure I could swallow soup for a day or two but just prior to the next procedure I was back to having to spit out my own saliva. It got to be a real drag. My regular GI doctor went on vacation and his stand-in was the one who found the new cancer.

Thus begins The Death Watch.